I'm curious to hear 'Ecstasy' and 'Set the Twilight Reeling,' the two before Edgah-Allen-Poe--I've heard that 'Ecstasy' has a nice song on it called 'Baton Rouge'

Oh, shit--he did 'Time Rocker' didn't he?

Blah.

'ecstacy' is very hit and miss. the songs are long-winded. half the time he's singing about middle aged issues and it's flat, the rest of the time he's still trying to do fringe material about masochists.

no one's mentioned 'the blue mask' - a great reed album.

I think Lou has done enough already in his lifetime to earn him a get-outta-jail-free card. I mean, jeez! The breadth of his work, the constant need to out due himself, the progression that he is still within. I mean, he could be playing the oldies circuit with his contemporaries at Six Flags playing "Walk on the Wild Side' every hour on the half hour but he is not. Now, I am not a fan of everything he has ever done, but I am almost always challenged by his work. He also has certainly carved out his own voice. Nobody is like Lou. I think he is truly an original.

mattw, 'set the twilight reeling' and 'ecstasy' are both pretty hit and miss. to be fair, the first song on 'set the twilight reeling' is called "egg cream", and is, in fact, a paean to egg cream. also, "hang on to your emotions" is one of those songs that gives me an unreasonable amount of faith in lou these days.

I'll fess up,

I get Lou Reed, but I've never gotten it - solo or VU.

The best part of the solo stuff is Quine.

The best part of the VU stuff was the nihilism.

But, barring the one time I heard Loaded all of the way through during a New Year's party, I've wound up been bored to death listening to them/him.

I guess that maybe I missed the boat, but (speaking from personal experience only) the people and friends that I know/knew who were obsessed with the genius of the VU/LR experience were also the people that really dug the song "Heroin."

Right or wrong, fair or not, many people got lost, with VU/LR as their guide

If you know what I mean.

my brother died of a heroin overdose and its his fault.

fucker.

NOT CRAP